Studying sentiment on Twitter is… complicated

Emotions are key to explain and anticipate consumer behaviour, and sentiment analysis offers marketers a way of measuring and summarising those emotions. Emotions displayed on social media conversations, in particular, are very appealing for research, as these platforms offer many opportunities to listen to the conversations in real time, with minimum disruption for the individuals … Continue reading Studying sentiment on Twitter is… complicated

Consumer Data and the ‘War on Terror’

The book that I co-authored with Kirstie Ball, Elizabeth Daniel, Sally Dibb, Maureen Meadows and Keith Spiller, has been featured in 'Research Reporter', the research newsletter of the Faculty of Business at Oxford Brookes University. The original article is here. Transcript below in case the link does not work for you. Surveillance, consumer data and … Continue reading Consumer Data and the ‘War on Terror’

Going along with customer lies can be good for business

Yesterday, child #2 lost a tooth. At night, he carefully placed the tooth under his pillow, for the Tooth Fairy... even though he knows, a-hem, the truth about Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. And, sure enough, this morning, when he checked under the pillow and spotted something left by the Tooth Fairy, he gave … Continue reading Going along with customer lies can be good for business

What Nash’s work means for Marketing

We learned, at the end of last month, that the mathematician John Nash had died, with his wife Alice, in a traffic accident. Nash’s work on game theory, for which he won a Nobel prize alongside John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten, has relevance to many areas of public life, from international trade negotiations to war … Continue reading What Nash’s work means for Marketing

Google research on choice and use of mobile apps

For a customer facing company, there are many potential benefits of developing an app. It can provide valuable customer insight; it offers a vehicle for personalisation; and it can foster loyalty towards your brand, as discussed here. However, with more than 1 million apps available in Apple’s app store, alone, you really need to understand … Continue reading Google research on choice and use of mobile apps

Positioning: be different but familiar

The textbooks will tell you that the key to succeed in the market place is to differentiate yourself from competition; to carefully choose your positioning. And that means that you need to start by answering this question: What is it that only we can do? However, a recent chat over coffee, made me think of … Continue reading Positioning: be different but familiar

About creativity, coffee and the need to think like a customer

Somebody told me about a very interesting TED talk on creativity. I was very intrigued, and decided to search for it when I got home. The person that mentioned the talk, said that the speaker discussed how starting to drink coffee (instead of beer) had had such a positive impact on creativity: people were lucid … Continue reading About creativity, coffee and the need to think like a customer

An historical example of how (even well intentioned) data collection can lead to negative consequences

I was having a chat with the lovely Monika (aka Mum On The Brink) about the risks of blanket data collection. I said that, in many cases, the purpose of collecting data is harmless or even well intentioned (for instance, save time, show information that is relevant…), but that those same datasets could then be … Continue reading An historical example of how (even well intentioned) data collection can lead to negative consequences

The value of social media data is not in data itself, but the interpreter and the use

Tim Kourdi’s comment about the value of information, in my latest blog post, reminded me of an interview with Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey. Jack challenged criticism that the physical constraints of the platform (specifically, the 140 characters limit for a message) would lead to shallow, value-less content being shared. He did acknowledge that the limit … Continue reading The value of social media data is not in data itself, but the interpreter and the use